1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to a feed system and more particularly, it concerns an improved poultry feed system for dispensing feed from a feed source to selectively positioned feed stations throughout the poultry house for simultaneous distribution.
2. Description of Prior Art
The use of automated poultry feeders is a relatively recent development. The system employed before their appearance involved manually carrying the feed to the pens to be fed to a limited number of fowl. while this method enabled the poultry producer to limit the number of birds competing for a given quantity of feed, the number of man hours required made it prohibitive. Therefore most poultry producers, today, distribute feed automatically throughout an entire poultry house by means of mechanized feeders.
Perhaps the most advanced of such mechanized feeders is the standard chain trough feeder. The chain trough feeder often includes a channel shaped trough arranged in a closed loop extending throughout the poultry house and a conveyor chain, located in the bottom of the trough, to move feed along its length throughout the closed loop. The birds then feed directly from the trough as it circulates feed.
A variation of this chain trough feeder is represented by the Cumberland Auto-Pan Feeder. This feeder requires that feed-drop holes be added in the bottom of the trough at selective locations. Drop tubes and pans are then placed under these holes and the feed falls in these pans as it is circulated in the trough. Accordingly, the birds feed directly from the pans.
While standard chain trough feeders and variations such as the Cumberland Autopan Feeder provide the advantage of reducing manual effort, they do suffer the following disadvantages:
First, since the nature of the standard chain trough feeder is such that feed is first provided either at the first open section of the trough away from the feed source or at the first pan feeder, severe crowding occurs at this feed entry point during the first ten to fifteen minutes of feeding. This crowding may be extreme, resulting in a significant loss of birds due to trampling and smothering. Moreover, a mechanical failure during this period can result in increased losses, due to continued crowding until the malfunction is corrected.
Secondly, there is a high level of competition for the available feed which results in broad variations of body weight. In restricted feeding applications such as the raising of breeder hens, such variations are unsatisfactory. Rather, the desired result is to maintain a uniform weight among the birds by providing a small, but equal portion of feed per bird per day.
Finally, since the chain draws feed past every opening, there is a tendency for the finer particles of feed to drop into the earlier pan feeders and for the coarser feed particles to circulate to the most distant pan feeders. This feed particle separation is especially disadvantageous because the variation in the size of the ingredients is often due to a difference in the ingredients, themselves. This system, therefore, often causes only certain ingredients of the feed to be available at the most distant stations.
Hence, to provide an improved feed system, it is necessary to provide a system which simultaneously distributes feed to the feed stations throughout the poultry house without separating feed ingredients.